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1 Peter Week 2
Pray
Read 1 Peter 1:3-7
So last week Peter, laid the foundation of our walk with Christ, which is salvation. We are called by God who long ago loved us and chose that we would come to know Him. We are given the Holy Spirit to set us apart and we are cleansed by the blood of Christ and saved to become more like Christ as we follow the purpose of God for our lives. With this foundation laid out before us, Peter is going to head into what our salvation should lead to in our lives.
v.3-5 – Peter opens up this next section of scripture by reminding us that we are born again. The process of being born again is known as Regeneration. Regeneration changes not only the way God sees us, we are no longer sinners but are clean and counted as His son or daughter, but it is supposed to change the way we live our life before others as well. We receive this new birth, our salvation, from God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. This is a mercy that He shows us. God looked down on us and seeing that there was nothing that we could do to right our wrongs, sent Christ to die in our place and be raised from the dead. Without this mercy that God shows us, we would not have the hope of the new birth we are given through Christ. Verse 4 goes on to tell us of the inheritance we have in Christ. Our inheritance, our hope, is heaven. It is an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. Nothing can change or take away our hope in Christ of eternity in heaven with Him. Nothing. We are told in verse 5 that God, by His power, is guarding our inheritance by sustaining our faith in Him. We don’t get the full benefits of this inheritance, yet, but we can be sure that it will be given to us because God sees us as an heir with Christ.
v.6-7 – Peter quickly then begins to speak of the joy that we have during our suffering when we think about the hope we have in Christ. That hope, even during persecution, should bring us joy because we know we ultimately will be with Christ for eternity. That is something that is hard for us to understand, waiting for something to be fulfilled. We live in a society that is all about instant gratification. We have fast food, microwaves, and 3G internet on our phones. So when we begin to talk about enduring persecution and having joy in what is to come, we sort of get lost in the translation. But we need to remember, that even though we may suffer on earth, we have eternity with Christ in heaven to look forward to, and that should bring us joy (Heb. 12:2). Peter goes on to tell these Christians and us today, why we go through trials. It is so that our faith can be proven genuine, real. We can learn and grow from suffering. We can learn to cling to Christ and put Him first. Our faith deepens through our suffering, and in all of this we can honor Christ.
Through the mercy of God in sending His son to take our place, and the resurrection of Christ from the dead, we are given a new birth in Christ. Regeneration changes us in the sight of God and in the way we live before others. Through our salvation we have hope, an inheritance as heirs with Christ. Because of this hope we can endure our current circumstances with joy as we learn to live more like Christ and set our minds on our eternal destination.